Democrats may have been fooled by Bush's calls for "bipartisanship" in the President's first term, agreeing to wasteful tax bills, the Medicare Rx bill and No Child Left Behind, but it appears as though they won't fall prey to this ploy again. The Washington Post's Dan Balz reports on this development in Monday's issue in an article entitled "Democrats United in Plans To Block Top Bush Initiatives":

As President Bush prepares for his second term, Democrats in Washington and around the country are organizing for a year of confrontation and resistance, saying they are determined to block Bush's major initiatives and thereby deny him the mandate he has claimed from his reelection victory last November.

[...]

In part that mood reflects the reality that Democrats are even more of a minority party than they were when Bush was sworn in four years ago, their ranks smaller in both the House and Senate and their ability to influence the legislative agenda sharply diminished.

But the unity of purpose also underscores a hardening of attitudes among Democrats -- from elected officials and strategists to grass-roots activists and party constituencies -- that Bush's domestic agenda presents opportunities to divide the GOP, break apart Bush's winning coalition and recapture some of the voters who supported Bush last fall. [emphasis added]

Balz notes something extremely important here. By being unified in their defense of programs like Social Security, the Democrats might actually be able to go on the offensive against the Republicans.

The fact is that most Americans believe that Social Security is a good program and has done much good for the country; they don't want to get rid of it. If the Democrats are able to (rightly) frame this as a battle for the program's life, they just might be able to win back a significant portion of the blue collar voters that left the party two decades ago.